Lake Inari is huge. Its surface area is 1084 km² / 418.534 mi². Cruises on it can be made from the center of town of Inari. Distance from the Arctic Circle to the North is 316 km / 196 miles. Lake Inari is the third biggest lake in Finland and it is in the North as You can see. There are 3318 islands on it! Think about that. Its length is 50 km / 31 mi. The width is about 80 km / 49 mi from Southwest to Northeast. The deepest point is 96 meters / 311 feet. The average depth is only 14.3 meters / 46 feet.

Our cruise went to the island called in Finnish Ukonkivi and translated into English “Old man’s stone”. Ukonkivi is Inari Sámis worship and sacrifice site. Its height is 30 meters / 98 feet. The length is 100 meters / 328 feet. It is really worth for visit. On return we saw also Graveyard Island, which served as cemetery of ancient Sami people. Two last photos are showing it taken with full zoom from cruise ship.

I start my photos with few friendly looking carved wooden bears, which were in front of the entrance to the ticket office and a shop.

I am so glad that my series please to You. Even these Northern parts can be beautiful in their own way. We love there barren landscapes where nature has to fight for its life. Also the atmosphere is there very special. There is also possible to listen to the sound of silence. I guess that it is same on mountains – silence and sounds of nature.

I think that it is the same thing which we have on many of our islands that they are inhabited only during summer and that means summer cottage only. The problem is connection between autumn and winter or winter and spring. I mean that when the ice is not enough hard to carry people or snowmobiles. In winter there is not problem. Ice can carry even cars that I know, because we have during winter many ice official roads.

Thank You. I know Hurtigruten although I have not been there. It is fantastic. In 2006 we drove with our car to Nordkapp, which is the Northernmost point in Europe. It can be reached by car thru three tunnels. The place is fantastic. I have few photos from our trip to there, among my “About me” page.

is Inari Sámis an ancient religion? What were there rituals? Here in Hawaii we have ancient sites that were called Heiaus. There were different types. Some were used to pray for good harvest, others for government and that the chief would have success at taking care of the people and still others were strictly for praying for winning wars.

I plan to do a blog on those in the future but the research takes me forever so I put them off for a long time.

Are those boats heated inside? It makes my feet freeze just looking at the gray skies. But The country and lakes are beautiful.

The Sami people has been lived in Finland before Finns came to Finland. So they are indigenous people in my country. Inari is the name. There is a site called Inari, which I presented in my previous post and also the lake called lake Inari. The Sami people are yoiking and they have shamans. Their profession is reindeer breeders. Reindeers are free until it comes time to gather them together. Sami people are living in Norway, Sweden, and Finland and in the Kola Peninsula of Russia. They have their own language and it differs from Finnish so much that I cannot understand it.

Heating of those boats is no problem! Sure they are heated. When I started this series of posts, I told in my first post that we were not lucky with the prevailing weather conditions. Next week was warm and sunny, but we were already at home. Lot of tourists comes to Lapland from South and middle Europe in late summer. Then we have many times “Indian summer”. Tourists use their car or caravans, mainly. Some drive also motorcycles.

Such beautiful photos! We received another 10 inches of snow here today. Looking at all the greenery in your photos really makes me wish spring would hurry up and get here. 🙂
Have a wonderful weekend!!

That was a lot of snow. We have been lucky that it has not snowed for about ten days, but instead of that we have freezing cold. Last night it was this the winter’s cold record in a place from which I’ll show photos after many weeks: -40.3 ºC / -40.54 ºF. Well, not so cold, but anyway. I’ll tell then in future that this was the place where it was cold in February.

What a great boat ride! Such beautiful scenery! Lovely lake views, trees, and such rocks! I love clouds and I was looking at the cloud formations in your photos. They were beautiful as well and complemented your photos very nicely! Great post, Sartenada!

Its style is catamaran. Also it is very ecological and economic, because it is boosted by two electrical engines each generating 50 kWh. These give power for one hour’s ride. When batteries are not giving anymore energy, then it uses diesel fuel which is needed only three liters in an hour. I should say that it is super economical vessel.

I’ve looked through this and the previous post. What a wild and wonderful place this is! I particularly like the photos of the islands in the lake (I wonder how this would look in winter time) and also the ‘stone field’. I would love to visit the Arctic Circle, especially last week when we saw such beautiful images of the Aurora Borealis on TV.

How nice that You visited on my site and left Your comment. Thank You.

Arctic Circle which is very near to the town of Rovaniemi, I have presented in the first post of this series . I have not been here or further north during winter. According to some recent statistics there is 44 centimeter / 17.3 inches snow. Lowest temperature has been -33 ºC / -27.4 ºF. Not so cold. Next two years are good for observation of Aurora Borealis. So, You have time to plan…

There is awesome place during winter time, if You some day plan Your visit to Finland and it is

From your photos, the land has such an ancient feel, as though humans are mere interlopers in a landscape that existed long before people, and will continue to exist long after people are ancient memories on this planet.

Stunningly beautiful scenery, although I think all those trees would be too many for this prairie native. As always, your images capture the beauty around you. I was especially curious about that red house. I’ve never seen a house that shade of red, like the color of a barn here in the States. Is that a common color for barns in that area?

Well, red barns are not common here, but in houses, it was quite common. Let us say that dating back 70, 60 and 50 years, then red color was popular. Nowadays times has been changed and colors also. Our house is from 1993 and its color is called tundra. It is light as You can see in this link:

So our house is a tile house made from that tile and color. In Finland have old saying: “Oh, if I had own red house and potato field”. That means it, that people dream from own house and small garden with it.